Barbershop: ‘Indivisible’ Hosts Discuss Trump’s First 100 Days

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now we’re going to spin to a Barbershop. That’s where we lay down with a organisation of engaging folks to pronounce about what’s in a news and what’s on their minds. This week a special Barbershop, and since we’re dedicating this hour to President Trump’s initial 100 days in office, we suspicion we’d strech out to a integrate of a colleagues who participated in a special plan formed during WNYC in New York that was orderly around that unequivocally subject.

It was called Indivisible, and 4 nights any week opposite reporters hosted a live call-in module where listeners around a nation common their thoughts and concerns about a nation and themselves. Here’s a small ambience of what they heard. It’s a montage from a final module of Indivisible Thursday night.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, “INDIVISIBLE”)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: we can’t even move adult a fact that we remotely support Trump since of a feeling that comes my way.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I’m not going to be ashamed of being a Democrat.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I’m a trucker. we am educated. I’m a trucker, I’m a maestro and we voted for Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Those of us who were not in support of Trump have to sojourn still since they’ll assume we’re heretics…

MARTIN: Two of a 4 hosts were means to join us today. Charlie Sykes is an author and longtime regressive pronounce uncover horde who usually wrapped adult a two-decades army hosting his possess politics-based pronounce uncover in Wisconsin. And, as we pronounced before, usually to relax, he motionless to attend in this plan he hosted Indivisible on Wednesday nights. Welcome back, Charlie.

CHARLIE SYKES: Thank we so much.

MARTIN: And Kai Wright is a longtime columnist for a on-going repository The Nation. He’s horde of WNYC’s podcast a United States of Anxiety: Culture Wars that starts a second deteriorate shortly in a integrate of weeks. we consider a May 9. Kai hosted Indivisible on Monday nights. Welcome, Kai.

KAI WRIGHT: So happy to be here.

MARTIN: And final yet positively not least, Mara Liasson NPR’s inhabitant domestic match is here with me for a hour and was an fervent listener as we was. Welcome back, Mara. Thanks so much.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Thanks for carrying me.

MARTIN: So a plan was engaging since it not usually went out opposite a air, opposite a country, it was opposite platforms. For example, Kai, we were assimilated by writers from The Economist in London. It was also promote over Facebook live, so we had some unequivocally intent audiences.

Here’s what we wanted to know. What did we wish to learn over a march of this project? And did we hear from listeners – and what we listened from listeners – did that comport with what we suspicion we were going to hear? Kai, since don’t we start?

WRIGHT: Yeah. We had a lot of folks going – not to discuss all of a people that were job in – and, we know, we don’t know what we wanted to hear from it, to be honest, Michel. we was, like many people, was utterly astounded by a outcome of a election. And so we was kind of like OK, what’s everybody thinking? we – usually let me know.

And we consider a thing that stood out most, though, was something that we did indeed hear before a choosing when we were stating a United States of Anxiety that is that there usually is widespread doubt and regard opposite a domestic spectrum about not usually a destiny command large, yet where do we privately fit into a destiny of this nation where – what is going to occur for me in a entrance years? And we consider that was for me a – each night whatever we were articulate about that came behind – it came behind to that question. What’s going to occur for me in this capricious future?

MARTIN: Charlie, what about you. You’re an aged palm during a pronounce uncover business, we know, obviously. we was usually meddlesome in either what we listened from these listeners was identical or opposite from what you’ve been conference all these years that you’ve been articulate about politics on a air.

SYKES: Not an aged palm during this kind of a radio show. we consider we started my initial uncover observant that we was a foreigner in a bizarre land, and we unequivocally was. But we was unequivocally intrigued by a suspicion of building a sermon outward of a choice existence silos that we’ve created. These conversations usually do not occur unequivocally often. we mean, this is, we think, one of a markers of complicated domestic sermon is that conservatives have their possess protected spaces. The left has a possess protected spaces and unequivocally frequency do we have any cross-pollination.

So we was unequivocally intrigued by a idea, and, of course, we was unequivocally struck because, as Kai mentioned, we was astounded as good by a outcome. And we wanted to know how freaked out were people by this election? How many highlight was there? And how are people going to slight this initial 100 days? And it was positively – we’d never had one week where we lacked for any arrange of element or entertainment. we was also utterly amazed, we have to say, how many Trump supporters we have listening to open radio stations all opposite a country.

LIASSON: Well, we consider it’s always good when we have people removing out of their relate chambers and articulate to people who remonstrate with them. There’s too small of that in this nation since we’ve sorted ourselves out into a kind of narrow-minded camps, genealogical politics. But we theory what meddlesome me as a domestic contributor was that Donald Trump ran a unequivocally divisive campaign, and it worked for him. Even tonight as we speak, he’s going to a convene in Pennsylvania. He’s usually visited places that he won. He seems to be kind of doubling down on this bottom strategy.

You know, he won – he didn’t win a renouned vote. He won with 46 percent, yet on a other palm he does have 100 percent of a power. His celebration now controls all in Washington. And what’s been unequivocally engaging is many people suspicion he’d strech out over his base. He hasn’t. He’s doubled down on his base. He wants them to be as dismissed adult as possible. He has kind of governed from his base, hasn’t reached out to Democrats or even focused in a early weeks on things that competence be kind of mangle adult a aged narrow-minded groups like focusing on infrastructure, things that would emanate bipartisan support. So that’s unequivocally engaging to me that he seems to see a heated tribalism in a politics as something that’s good for him.

MARTIN: You know, we wish to pronounce about that a small bit some-more because, we know, there – we did hear a lot of anger, and there is a lot of anger. we have to contend there have been demonstrations usually about each weekend here in Washington, D.C. There’s another vast one currently for meridian change. You know, people are energized.

So, Kai, I’ll go to we on this. Kai, initial on this, and, of course, we wish to hear from Charlie, too. Did we get a clarity of that in a module a people job in and to what end? we mean, who has a energy? And is it carefree or is it hateful? I’m meddlesome in what your knowledge with this suggests about a inlet of county sermon in this country. Kai, since don’t we start?

WRIGHT: we listened unequivocally small hope, to be honest, on any side of a equation. we usually listened unequivocally few people who had something quite carefree to say. we heard, again, a lot of regard and frustration, and, yes, anger. Though, we have to contend that among Trump supporters – forgive me – among Trump supporters, one thing that was – that stood out is that people are happy with what he’s doing so distant since he is waging a enlightenment fight on their behalf.

And we consider that speaks to something about since he’s not perplexing to arrange of strech opposite a order – is that it’s not unequivocally about a set of routine fights for Trump. It’s about changing a approach we pronounce about politics to core a opposite set of people and their sold set of frustrations and grievances. And that’s what worked for him, and that’s what he’s continued to do. And those people regardless of what else he does keep conference that, and they keep – they called in week after week saying, yeah, we know. we remonstrate with X, Y or Z specific policy, yet we unequivocally like a approach he’s talking.

MARTIN: Charlie, what do we contend about that?

SYKES: No. He – Kai is positively right about all of that. we consider one of a many extraordinary numbers, during slightest for me, is to demeanour during a capitulation rating that Donald Trump still has among Republicans and conservatives. You know, there were a lot of Republicans that were saying, well, in a choosing it was a binary choice between him and Hillary Clinton. But once he becomes president, we’ll reason him to a opposite standard. Well, that hasn’t happened, and, we know, a tenure that Mara used we don’t consider can be overemphasized – a tribalism of American politics, how bitterly divided we are.

And Donald Trump, we think, does positively play to that. And, we know, Kai took rather of a desperate indicate of view, and we wish we could respond to that, yet roughly all that we’re saying function in a groups in American politics and in media – these – a relate chambers. we consider he’s going to get worse since of these trends that Donald Trump is not reaching out, he is not perplexing to enhance his base. And right now we demeanour during where American politics competence be. You indeed have a vast series of Americans who honestly have motionless that they will go along with anything that Donald Trump says or does. And they will switch their positions formed on where a president, we know, a boss takes a position.

So they don’t indeed caring that he has no legislative accomplishments. As prolonged as he feeds them a red beef tongue – if as prolonged as he gets their Supreme Court claimant – that was unequivocally vast – amicable conservatives are happy, a NRA is happy. As prolonged as he picks a right fights, we consider that they’re going to be sealed plain behind him. And we usually have to usually discuss before we get there, a one growth that we wish to usually prominence from a initial 100 days is we talked during a debate about, we know, a post-truth domestic world.

And this is something that I’m increasingly endangered about that we’ve indeed begun to normalize this post-truth era, that a fact that a boss might lie, we know, hundreds of times roughly seems normal now. It roughly seems like it is slight that a ability to be angry or to even keep adult with it we consider diminishes with each flitting week.

MARTIN: we wish to hear what Mara has to contend about that, yet we usually wish to burst in quickly to contend that if you’re usually fasten us, we are with Charlie Sykes and Kai Wright. They are dual of a hosts of WNYC’s Indivisible. It was a inhabitant call-in module tracking a initial 100 days of a Trump administration. The plan usually wrapped adult on Thursday. NPR domestic match Mara Liasson is fasten a conversation, too. What do we contend about that, Mara, as a chairman who has been covering this for a prolonged time and do we consider that that’s true?

LIASSON: Well, initial of all, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and this whole suspicion of a fact that he tells so many lies or says so many things that are false and we kind of – it’s so strenuous that we’re dull to it. My doubt is is this something that is a permanent change and now any politician can get divided with this? Or is this something singular to Donald Trump? He is so unique. His celebrity is so unique. He has a finish deficiency of contrition or a filter, whatever we wish to call it and that, no, it’s not going to be means to be replicated. we don’t know a answer to that.

The other thing we wish to contend about this overwhelming thing in a polls that everybody’s been articulate about that his bottom has not wavered that – what is it? – 94 percent of his electorate contend that, yes, they’d opinion for him again. But he still has forsaken in his – well, from his list to his capitulation rating, 46 percent of a opinion to now hovering around 40 percent. Somebody has depressed off there. And to pronounce about a high capitulation ratings he still gets from Republicans – yes, he gets them, yet they’re not that high historically. They’re usually around 80 percent. A boss should have during this indicate in his tenure something like 95 percent capitulation from his possess party. So he indeed has slipped there historically. And – yet we determine with all that’s been said. He is 70 years old. He won an unexpected, yet totally wilful and overwhelming victory. Why would he change?

MARTIN: Just a integrate of mins left, so let me ask all of we – have we schooled anything in a past 100 days that we did not know about a nation or about a domestic care of a country, about ourselves? So, Kai, maybe I’ll start with we on this.

WRIGHT: You know, we struggled – this was indeed a doubt for callers on a final night, we know – forgive me. Have we – has anything altered for you? Have we – is there anything that we didn’t consider before that we consider now? We didn’t get any unequivocally transparent answers. I’m not certain that we can answer it for myself.

What is distinguished to me, though, I’ll say, that’s opposite is that we did not design this many belligerence internationally from Donald Trump. we unequivocally didn’t design that. And we consider that that has dismayed – a troops families, we talked to in particular, were some of a many jarred and endangered people. And we consider it’s – they substantially – many of us usually didn’t design this volume of belligerence.

MARTIN: Charlie?

SYKES: A integrate of things – series one that Donald Trump incited out to be accurately who we suspicion he was as president. He is unequivocally many like he was as a candidate, erratic, ruling by a whim. The other thing we’ve schooled is that a institutions – during slightest so distant in a initial 100 days – are holding organisation and holding this boss in check. And that’s – put asterisks behind it – however, I’m not certain a repairs that’s being finished to a domestic enlightenment by some of a trends that we’ve been articulate about – a divisions, a coarsening of domestic sermon – all of those things. The institutions are still holding, yet we consider that there’s genuine intensity for damage.

MARTIN: Mara, final thought?

LIASSON: Yeah. we was going to – that’s what we was going to say. we can’t – we – one of a things that I’ve kept in my mind covering Donald Trump is that he is a highlight exam for Democratic institutions, and we determine with Charlie. When we go down a list – a press, a judiciary, Congress – we give them churned grades – citizen rendezvous – they’re holding adult flattering well. Even yet he pronounced all sorts of peremptory things, he’s done incorrigible equilibrium between a United States and Russia, he’s pounded judges, a other day he told Fox News that he thinks all those frustrating checks and balances protections for a minority celebration are primitive – that hasn’t happened. But we would contend right now his administration looks like a xenophobic chronicle of what a Mitt Romney administration would demeanour like. And maybe that is usually not as bad as a lot of Trump opponents had feared.

MARTIN: Well, we will positively have a lot some-more to pronounce about in a subsequent 100 days and beyond. Mara Liasson, NPR domestic correspondent, Charlie Sykes and Kai Wright dual of a 4 hosts of Indivisible, a special plan formed during WNYC in New York, a inhabitant call-in module tracking a initial 100 days of a Trump presidency. Charlie Sykes, Kai Wright, Mara Liasson, interjection so many for fasten us. Mara, adhering around. we conclude this.

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